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My father had told me just a few tantalizing details about his grandfather, Dr. Abraham A. Sulcer, whom he never knew. Over the years as I dug into his life – luckily, he left a wonderful trail – I discovered a fascinating man who lived through enormous national – and personal – crises. During these of the global pandemic of 2020, it’s interesting to know that Doc Sulcer (who considered himself a man of science), would insist that all sickness is an illusion.
“Old Doc Sulcer” was remembered by the folks in downstate Illinois as “having taken off many a leg” during the Civil War, and there was some mystery about why he went to California and the fate of his other children. After all, Henry wasn’t from California. Or, was he?
I discovered that Henry’s father was a man of contradictions. A country boy yet a man of education: a soldier yet a healer, a doctor who came to see medicine as “a farce”, an intellectual spiritualist, and a man of considerable reputation. He was rarely mentioned by his distant family in Hyde Park, but he emerges here as a man of strong character. He suffered many setbacks, but always struggled against bitterness, somehow always managing to find a path forward.
As I write this, in a six-county area under a “shelter-in-place” order announced today to combat the new corona virus, his troubled life amid 19th century national health obsessions don’t seem quite as remote to my life as they may have even a few weeks ago. My great-grandfather was a man who never gave up and we need that kind of spirit today.
To read A.A’s story in sequence, it begins with his life as a young farm boy in downstate Ohio.
